Fall 2018 Venture Expo – Participating Companies

See the best startups that Austin and Central Texas have to offer in a fast-paced, high-energy setting. Find out which startups are raising money, which are seeking advisors and board members, and which are simply hitting it out of the park. Meet investors, entrepreneurs and the companies that are making our Texan economy proud. Venture Expo offers a who’s who of investors in Austin and a chance to connect with the community’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. All of this in just one afternoon!

At 1 PM, Brett Hurt, a local serial entrepreneur, will give a keynote address in the Crum Auditorium followed by two minute elevator pitches from the 14 Accelerator companies. From 2 PM until 4 PM, more than 20 startups will be exhibiting in the atrium of Rowling Hall. This is your chance to talk one-on-one with the startups. At 4 PM, we will have a cocktail reception in the Special Events Room on the fifth floor.

Brett Hurt is a serial entrepreneur who is best known for founding Bazaarvoice and serving as CEO and President for 7½ years, leading the company from a bootstrapped concept through its successful IPO. He is now co-founder and CEO of data.world, which is building the most meaningful, collaborative, and abundant data resource in the world as a Certified B Corp.

Prior to Bazaarvoice, Brett founded Coremetrics and helped grow the company into a global, leading marketing analytics solution for the eCommerce industry before its acquisition by IBM for around $300m.

Brett is also the co-owner of the Hurt Family Investments (HFI), alongside his wife, Debra. Hurt Family Investments are involved in 59 startups, 15 VC funds and multiple philanthropic endeavors.

Accelerator Companies

3D OPTICAL VISION SYSTEM FOR BRAIN SURGEONS
Advanced Scanners surgical machine vision system corrects navigational error due to “Brain Shift”, allowing surgeons to minimize the amount of brain tissue removed during an open brain surgery, resulting in fewer side effects. Our uniquely capable 3D surface scanner tracks sub-millimeter changes to the exposed brain and uses that data to continually update the patient’s MRI. MORE INFO

ONE CLICK EVENT PHOTOGRAPHY SERVICES
We take pictures. Book local photographers for any event (except weddings) for $50 per hour. Get photos delivered same day. We’re an Austin-based, 2016 Techstars event photography marketplace. We capture the moments that matter for event hosts and their guests while paying photographers to do what they love – take great, candid shots of people and share in an experience. MORE INFO

FIRE SUPPRESSION EQUIPMENT
Fire Spike makes force multiplying fire suppression appliances for fire departments and forestry services to help them contain and suppress wildfires while keeping them safer and appliances which keep tree canopy and residential fires from jumping and spreading. Our two-part hardware solution enables rapid deployment and is unmanned. We are a hardware direct sales company.

YOUR LOCAL GUIDE TO FITNESS AND WELLNESS
FITT Finder is a mobile app that provides those seeking a healthy lifestyle the fastest and most effective way to connect to ALL local fitness and wellness providers. In one click, searches are streamlined with classes, events, meetups and more, customized by ability, interests, budget, and location. Service providers get free, targeted access to new clients along with tools to keep them coming back and analytics to build healthy businesses. MORE INFO

BEAUTY IS REVEALED, NOT APPLIED
LAMIK Beauty is a vegan non-toxic cosmetics line manufactured in Texas. LAMIK is an inclusive makeup line for multicultural shades, undertones, and skin textures, otherwise underserved by the clean beauty market. The company was founded by Kim Roxie, an esthetician and makeup artist. LAMIK stands for Love And Makeup In Kindness, because Beauty is Revealed, not applied. MORE INFO

INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY, DECREASED OPERATING COSTS
Our business has two complementary objectives: we provide initial value by streamlining and digitizing the existing due-diligence processes of industrial health and safety (i.e. checklists and reporting), we then use our streamlined digital interface to collect data on workforce behavior and analyze that data in a way that allows managers to be more data-driven and proactive in their risk management decision making. MORE INFO

THE FUTURE OF ANESTHETIC RECYCLING
Resthetics has developed a device which captures waste anesthetic gases from hospital operating rooms. We can then manufacture this waste into a safe, reusable, generic anesthetic that can be sold back into the market. We achieve this by placing our device in line with the WAGD (waste anesthetic gas disposal), creating a simple retrofit to already existing systems. MORE INFO

UNLOCK YOUR RETIREMENT DOLLARS
Rocket Dollar, Inc. helps people unlock their retirement savings to achieve 21st-century diversification. We have built the world’s first technology platform to simplify self-directed investing. Customers can use Rocket Dollar accounts to invest retirement funds in real estate, private equity, venture capital, private businesses such as startups, cryptocurrency, and many other asset classes normally unavailable to the retirement investor. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Rocket Dollar is changing the way Americans invest for their retirement. MORE INFO

SMART SHOWER HEADWATER SAVER

Behavioral waste in showers occurs when bathers wait long after the water is warm before entering the shower. This problem accounts for $50 billion in water and heating energy waste every year, as a Lawrence Berkeley National Lab study finds. Solving this problem will save 200 billion gallons of water and over a trillion kWh of energy in the US alone. The Shower Stream adapter uses a novel arrangement of sensors and signals analysis algorithms to eliminate shower behavioral waste and, as a result, reduces water and energy use in showers by 20%. MORE INFO

REAL FRUIT. REAL GOOD.

Sway Water is purified still and sparkling made with a twist of real, organic fruit. Sway Water has one mission: to make a great-tasting, refreshing and hydrating product accessible to everyone. We are very proud to offer a product free from preservatives, added sugar, and any artificial yuckiness. Proudly created in Austin, TX. MORE INFO

BREAKTHROUGH IN SURGEON-COMPUTER INTERACTION

Many image-intensive surgeries require surgeons to reference patients’ CT/MRI scans during surgery, but surgeons can’t access those images due to the lack of a sterile interface. To solve this problem, we created a sterile wireless device that safely connects surgeons to their data when operating on a patient, while our enabling software provides a smart-tv like user experience, allowing surgeons to easily toggle between their desired applications and device feeds in the OR. MORE INFO

SIMPLIFYING HOW YOU MANAGE SERVICE REQUESTS

Manufacturing today utilizes highly complex, advanced technologies, including robotics, critical safety systems, and industrial IT hardware and software. Downtime due to this equipment failing results in an average of $30k to $50k an hour in losses with some industries like automotive losing an estimated $1.3m per hour. We help manufacturers recover from downtime faster and more cost-effectively by tapping into qualified underutilized system integrator resources on-demand. MORE INFO

UT and JBTVL Alumni Companies

CloXero offers the first available dry powder inhaler system for the targeted treatment for non-tuberculous mycobacterium (NTM) lung infections. By directly targeting the site of initiation and propagation of NTM bacterial infections, CloXero enables rapid and successful infection resolution while minimizing full body drug exposure and side effects. To enable a rapid and low-risk path to FDA approval, our proprietary re-formulation of the existing off-patent antibiotic, clofazimine, is coupled with an existing off-the-shelf inhaler device.

Desert Door is a craft distiller of a premium and unique Texas spirit known as Texas sotol. It’s made from three ingredients: wild-harvested Texas sotol plants, water from our well, and yeast. Sotol was the first alcoholic beverage ever consumed by humans in Texas 800 years ago, and the plant has been in use for over 13,000 years. Our sotol is smoother than whiskey, less smokey than mezcal, and it doesn’t burn like tequila. MORE INFO

Dynamic Light’s patented technology enables non-invasive, real-time, and continuous blood flow monitoring during surgery. We use modular, patented algorithms and software that integrate seamlessly into existing surgical platforms and aligns with the surgical workflow. MORE INFO

Elop.ai is a rapid prototyping tool for making mobile apps. It provides intelligent boilerplate along with custom code generation that is production ready. This can be used for creating your entire app or just for a new feature. MORE INFO

Lawtomation provides attorneys and their clients efficiency in their legal objectives. From automating legal document review, to legislative research, to preparing court petitions, one use of Lawtomation could save law firms and their clients thousands of dollars. Our solutions can flexibly be used by attorneys or directly by clients. MORE INFO

Sparkd provides a new service to improve networking at live events for the $20+ billion event technology industry. The Sparkd band is a low-cost wristband leased to event organizers, then given to attendees for the duration of an event which recognizes handshakes to automatically exchange contact information. This allows event networking to be more natural than ever before, and to take place with absolutely no additional user friction (like downloading an app).

Varuna AI makes growing plants simple. We’ve created a widely accessible self-managed hydroponic garden that leverages AI to empower consumers to become producers thereby reducing the human and environmental costs of fresh organic products. The Varuna system is powered by a powerful cloud-based platform and is designed to adjust grows in real-time based on environmental conditions. MORE INFO

Jason Carrier

Jason joined Jon Brumley Texas Venture Labs as a Venture Partner in 2018 to provide product management, business strategy, and digital technology consulting to our program partners, as well as conduct daily operations at the Center. He has a lifelong passion for entrepreneurship and technology with specific interests in the areas of elastic cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things.
As a McCombs graduate student, Jason co-founded Varuna AI, Inc., an Austin-based startup that is using artificial intelligence to hasten the world's transition to more sustainable agriculture practices. The venture was selected as the First Runner-up at the Texas Venture Labs Investment Competition (Spring 2018), James D. Pippin Veteran Award winner (Spring 2018), and Wells Fargo Clean Technology Award winner (Fall 2017). He also has startup experience in the real estate and healthcare industries. Prior to making Austin his home, Jason worked for 10 years as a military defense contractor performing network and systems engineering in Iraq, Kuwait, Hawaii, and Arizona. He is an Air Force veteran with combat zone experience and holds several IT certifications. Jason is also a member of the Project Management Institute, Texas Exes and the Austin Young Chamber of Commerce.